


the exertion of guile as befits a few dozen twelve year olds

by PreludeInZ



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Hufflepuff!Loki, Loki Teaches Defense Against the Dark Arts, Neither of these are actually my fandoms and I do not know what I am doing, was a sort of prompt over on tumblr, well sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 06:15:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12624987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PreludeInZ/pseuds/PreludeInZ
Summary: A student better schooled in Hogwarts’ History would know that the last Hufflepuff to occupy The Position was Galatea Merrythought, a fifty-year tenure that had lasted until 1945.There’d been a great deal of upheaval in the world then, too, and the need of a bulwark of defense against the eponymous Dark Arts had seemed just as essential as it does now. The world is an everchanging place, and the wizarding world has finally begun to stir itself into attempting to keep pace.Aliens in New York, after all. And Dark Elves in London. And Muggles with powers to rival wizardry’s own, from sources too fantastical for even wizards to believe.





	the exertion of guile as befits a few dozen twelve year olds

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt fic from over on tumblr.
> 
> tygermama asked: Okay but your "hufflepuff loki" rag makes me want Loki having to be DADA teacher as part of some elaborate plea deal to get back into Earth/Asgard society
> 
> http://voxmyriad.tumblr.com/post/164239322541/okay-but-your-hufflepuff-loki-rag-makes-me-want

A student better schooled in Hogwarts’ History would know that the last Hufflepuff to occupy  _The Position_  was Galatea Merrythought, a fifty-year tenure that had lasted until 1945.

There’d been a great deal of upheaval in the world  _then_ , too, and the need of a bulwark of defense against the eponymous Dark Arts had seemed just as essential as it does now. The world is an everchanging place, and the wizarding world has finally begun to stir itself into attempting to keep pace.

Aliens in New York, after all. And Dark Elves in London. And Muggles with powers to rival wizardry’s own, from sources too fantastical for even wizards to believe.

And, perhaps the most shocking development of all, Professor Sprout—emeritus of the Herbology department, cornerstone of Hufflepuff House, nearly 163—is taking a brief sabbatical, a single year off in the course of a tenure that’s nearly  _doubled_  dear old Professor Merrythought’s. Hufflepuff is a house known for its good-natured cheer, its kindness, and most of all, its stolid dependability in the face of crisis. For Professor Sprout to take a well-earned break is a curious catch-22, because Hufflepuffs as a rule are the most likely to grant that she deserves it, but equally the house least likely to expect that she’d take a break of her own accord.

And so Hufflepuff House is in absolute disarray.

Because the acting head of Hufflepuff House does not  _act_  like the head of Hufflepuff House.

For one thing, he teaches Defense Against the Dark Arts—not because the position had been unoccupied, but because he would take no other, and Headmaster Longbottom had apparently put up fairly little resistance against this request.

For another, he’s not an alumnus of Hogwarts, and therefore cannot  _possibly_  be a Hufflepuff himself. Not technically. Not according to the Sorting Hat, at least, though rumours have flown through the student body that the Sorting Hat had  _refused_  to sort him—or worse still, been unable to do so.

There are rumours that he isn’t human, though he looks it, and the list of things that  _look_  human but aren’t are a list of frightening things indeed. It’s possible that whatever he is, he conceals his true nature behind a glamour of some sort, though whether this is for the sake of vanity or secrecy is still a matter of debate.

Vanity is probably at least a part of it, because the sorts of students who notice this sort of thing notice that Professor Thomas Wichwood is very handsome indeed. His eyes are dark and his skin is fair. His robes are subtle and fine, and he wears his dark hair tied simply back, and carries no wand. Something about his stature seems to hint that, even as he walks the halls of a castle as old and grand as Hogwarts, he’s accustomed to walking the halls of somewhere older and grander still.

And yet there’s an undeniable youthfulness about him, a glint in his raven eyes that belies something uncharacteristically mischievous, for a member of Hufflepuff House.

_Especially_  for the _Acting Head_ of Hufflepuff House.

The first DADA class of the year is given to a class of second-years, an almost equal split of Hufflepuffs and Slytherins, with the latter outnumbering the former by only a single student. Interhouse rivalries aren’t nearly what they once were, but the divisions are a matter of tradition, and tradition has a way of seeping rather deeply into the way things are done at Hogwarts. So this fairly even divide of houses is divided fairly evenly between the left and right sides of the classroom, green and silver and black and yellow, respectively.

Professor Wichwood is nowhere to be seen. It’s been fifteen minutes since the start of class, and respectful punctuality is meant to be an informal tenet of Hufflepuff behaviour, and this is beginning to become a matter for some moderate concern.

Whispers grow into murmurs and concern becomes impatience, and the first student to state the obvious is a Slytherin girl, blonde and blue eyed and clearly growing bored with this state of affairs, and the mysterious Professor Wichwood. “Your professor seems a terrible fraud,” she observes, making the comment across the aisle to the nearest Hufflepuff.

“I’m sure he won’t be much longer,” the boy offers in answer, conciliatory. “He’s quite new to the job, after all, he’s not even taught a single class yet. He might have lost his way.”

“I heard he’s a  _war criminal_ ,” volunteers another girl, nearer the back of the room. There’s an irrepressibly dark glee in her voice as she plants the seed of what will be a rumour heard all over the castle before the day’s out.

“Which war?” another Slytherin inquires, as though this would be the most salient distinction.

“He’s not a  _war criminal_ ,” declares the first boy, aghast. “Professor Longbottom wouldn’t hire a war criminal.”

“But he hasn’t  _been_  hired though, has he? He’s a…a whatsit called…a  _consultant_. Professor Bletchley-Thornhill’s not even out of the castle, she’s just not teaching.”

“Professor Longbottom wouldn’t  _consult_  with a war criminal,” another Hufflepuff corrects firmly, staunchly defending her absent professor. “For goodness’ sakes, he’s only  _late_. It’s not a  _war crime_  to be  _late_.”

It’s a truism about Slytherins that their efforts are best and most concerted when they concern the discomfiture of others. So another voice pipes up, voicing another theory, “My cousin’s a fifth-year in Ravenclaw, and  _they’ve_  all decided that he’s probably not even human. They’re not sure  _what_  he is, but they’ve crossed  _human_  off the list. When’s any good ever come of  _non-human_  teachers?”

“Plenty of people aren’t human,” another stubborn voice answers, because Hufflepuffs are at their best when it comes to the rallied defense of innocents. “It’s his business, either way.”

This only spurs speculation further.

“He might be a  _vampire_.”

“A  _werewolf_! Another werewolf teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts! You’d think they’d have learned. It’s just  _irresponsible_ , is what it is.”

“A lich!”

“Some sort of horrible  _half_ -something. His parents must be horrid, whatever they are.”

“Maybe something else, maybe something  _worse_. Maybe something that’s got everyone fooled, teachers and students and the  _Ministry_ , even. Maybe he’s not even a real teacher. Maybe he’s something from somewhere  _else_. There were  _aliens_  in New York. Maybe—”

There’s a thunderclap of sound as the first boy shoves himself up behind his desk, knocking his books to the floor as he does so, startling the other half of the class into silence as he whirls to glare across the aisle, cheeks reddening and eyes bright. “He’s  _our professor_ ,” he declares staunchly, glowering at his classmates, “If Professor Sprout put him in charge, there was a  _good reason_. And you can’t expect to find it out if you decide somebody’s a  _vampire_  just because he’s ten minutes late to class! It’s not  _fair_!”

Hufflepuffs, as a rule, aren’t often moved to anger. They’re certainly almost never moved to shouting down their fellow students, but if there’s anything that will do it, it’s a slight against someone unable to defend themselves.

Being that this is substantially beyond the bounds of accepted Hufflepuff behaviour, it comes as an absolute shock to nearly half of the class, when the other half of it vanishes entirely, without so much as a puff of smoke.

In their place, and visibly  _reverent_  in the shocked outcry that follows, Professor Wichwood sits serenely atop a desk, with his palm full of a glittering silver pocketwatch, its watchchain pinned neatly to the pocket of a black waistcoat. The sleeves of his shirt are rolled up to the elbows, and he glances at the watchface once, before he makes his first comment, “You’d find it’s been rather nearer to twenty minutes than ten. And rather nearer to thirty than twenty, if I’m being honest, but I suppose by now it’s evident that  _honesty_  is not one of my foremost qualities.”

There’s an audible thud as the boy who’d spoken up drops back into his chair, gaping in the way only a twelve-year-old can, pure wonder and astonishment and sheer, inimitable  _awe_  at the caliber of magic that’s been worked in their classroom, by their teacher.

If this  _is_  their teacher.

Professor Wichwood rises languidly to his feet, and satiny black robes fall loosely from his shoulders, manifesting where they hadn’t been before, conjured from nothing. As he strides forward, the lining of these shimmers from black to a rich, bold shade of yellow, and curls slightly around his heels as he stops, still on the opposite side of the aisle.

Consciously or not, the assembled half-class of second-year Hufflepuffs have gathered themselves up into defensive little knots, startled and uncertain and not quite  _regretting_  their stalwart defense of Professor Sprout’s appointed substitute, but certainly beginning to wonder if they’ve not been rather naive about the whole thing.

“Children,” Professor Wichwood says, blandly amused. “Do calm down.”

“Our  _class_ , sir!” the girl who’d made the salient point about the criminality of lateness blurts, wringing her hands, “The others, the Slytherin lot—h-how— _where_ …?”

“Downstairs, in the classroom  _they_  were assigned, playing out the other half of this entertaining little charade with an admirably wicked disregard for authority. I’ve made it seem as though they’ve made two of you cry. It’s rather good fun. It’s possible I’ve chosen the wrong room.”

His first step across the aisle is met with another ripple of anxiety through his students, and he pauses, threatens a smile. “Oh, but I was quite heartened to hear how slowly you all seem to reach for judgment. I’m not a vampire, nor a lich; neither werewolf nor warlock, though not all that I’ve said was lies, either. I’m certainly not  _human_ , though the lot of you—the whole of wizardkind generally—are certainly closer to what I  _am_  than you are to being  _human_. I do wish I’d known that sooner, but never mind. I’ll remember for another war, perhaps.”

If this is a joke, it’s the sort that would play better with Slytherins than it does with Hufflepuffs. There aren’t even any nervous giggles in response, just nervous glances and shuffled feet.

But there are teachers who can read a room, and there are teachers who can’t. And if Professor Wichwood  _is_  a teacher, and not a lich or a war criminal or some horrible half-something, he can at least do that. “I’ve made you all uncomfortable,” he concludes, rather redundantly, and then claps his hands briskly together. “A show of good faith, then. Fifteen points for Hufflepuff, as my gracious thanks for the reservation of your judgment.”

“Our judgment of what, sir?”

At this, Professor Wichwood strides to his appointed position at the head of the class, and then turns to favour his students with a slightly challenging smile. “Of my qualities as a teacher,” he explains. “I am a great many things, and often a great many of them at once, but at this moment, upon this Earth,  I am a god in exile, and lately in the thrall of a debt that needs repayment. The less said about that the better. Be so good as to turn your textbooks to page three hundred and ninety-four.”


End file.
